System determining whether to activate public and private components operating within multiple applications of a component-based computing system

Abstract

A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide a component-based computing system having both publicly accessible and privately-only accessible computing components within multiple applications for providing component addressing / identification and naming spaces. A requested processing component is initiated by a calling component within a local computing system having one or more applications. The identity of the requested processing component, including an identity of a class ID and an identity of a partition from a request to activate a component initiated by a calling component, is obtained using configuration data for the requested component. The configuration data provides an indication of public-private status for the requested component. An instance of the requested component can be activated based on the public-private status.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The invention relates generally to a component-based computing system and more particularly to component-based computing system having both publicly accessible and privately-only accessible computing components within multiple applications within the computing system.BACKGROUND[0002]Object-oriented programming systems utilize collections of computer programming components executing within a system to form applications that provide a desired set of functionality. Components that possess authority to gain access to components present on a given system typically can identity and activate all other components that are presented on this system. This fact may allow processing systems to behave in manners that are different that initially intended as components attempt to access components that were not intended to be activated by a particular component.[0003]This potential deficiency in component-based systems typically arises when a component in one collection of com...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0007]A system in accordance with the principles of the present invention includes a computing system for activating a requested processing component initiated by a calling component within a local computing system. The computing system has an application activation control module for receiving a request to activate a component initiated by a calling component and activating an instance of the requested component, and an application identity module for determining the identity of one or more applications used to identify the requested processing component, a permit object activation module for determining whether an instance of the requested component may be activated.

[0008]Other embodiments of a system in accordance with the principles of the invention may include alternative or optional additional aspects. One such aspect of the present invention is a method and computer data product encoding instructions for activating a requested processing component initiated by a calling component within a local computing system having two or more applications. The method determines the identity of the requested processing component, including an identity of a class ID and an identity of an application from a request to activate a component initiated by a calling component and obtains configuration data for the requested component, the configuration data comprises an indication of public-private status for the requested component. If the configuration data indicates that the requested component is a public component, an instance of the requested component is activated. If the configuration data indicates that the requested component is a private component, the method determines if the requested component is a member of an application that also includes the calling component as a member. If the requested component and the calling component are members of the same application, an instance of the requested component is activated.

Problems solved by technology

This potential deficiency in component-based systems typically arises when a component in one collection of components that is viewed to be a single application attempts to access components resident within a second application resident on the same computing system.

No mechanism exists in current component based systems to confine activation calls for components between these applications to a small, well-defined set of access points.

As such, component based systems may be vulnerable to several different types of inappropriate and unauthorized behavior by applications.

Access to these system calls could be monitored and limited if appropriate.

The net result of these combinations of component calls may not be well understood or easily traceable until inappropriate behavior has occurred.

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